


If Secrets Were Like Seeds

by AetherAria



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: (but in a pleasant way), Established Relationship, Ficlet, I don't know how the fuck to tag this, Lizard Kissin' Tuesday (Penumbra Podcast), Multi, Second Citadel (Penumbra Podcast), Secrets, gentle summery love idfk, rambling??? character study sort of?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:34:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23778484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AetherAria/pseuds/AetherAria
Summary: Arum knows an infinity of secrets, both large and small. He and his Keep have never had anyone with which to share them, before.
Relationships: Lord Arum/Sir Damien/Rilla (Penumbra Podcast)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 81





	If Secrets Were Like Seeds

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little thing I couldn't get out of my head until I wrote it. Love. Title from the song No Plan, by Hozier.
> 
> EDIT: NOW WITH ART THAT MAKES ME CRY???? Art by tumblr user skunkoon, commissioned by tumblr user shorter-than-her-tbr-pile, both now own my entire heart. I'm emotional. Art is [Here](https://skunkoon.tumblr.com/post/619204063689637888/im-honored-to-have-worked-on-this-gift)

Once, Arum promised to grant Amaryllis a glimpse of the secrets of the universe, in exchange for her botanical talents.

That is not precisely how it feels, now.

Arum holds secrets, yes. Secrets of the Universe, secrets of the Keep, many of which overlap. Secrets of magic and growth, of _life_. Enormous, incomprehensible secrets, unknowns that pull at the edges of his mind.

These he holds close. These, he shares in smaller ways.

He and Amaryllis experiment together, and he twines his claws through the air, pulling the magic nearly taut enough for her to see. He opens his palms, and he presents her with _miracles_. Miracles which he knows, fondly, that she will perceive as puzzles. He will watch her eyes glimmer over their impossibility and his tongue will tingle in his mouth with the desire to spill over the next secret, the next infinity to unravel.

He made no such promises, in the beginning, to Sir Damien, but his secrets slip with the poet just as easily. They stand on the balcony and Arum feels out, weaving the bioluminescence through his swamp below to glimmer in spirals and fractals and bursts like cool, silent fireworks, and when Damien laughs in delight, Arum knows and does not mind that the poet does not quite understand the gravity of what Arum presents to him. The Keep is the heart of life, here. Timeless, impossible, _holy_. Arum trusts Sir Damien to respect that holiness even if he does not understand. He trusts Damien's delight to weave with reverence. He blooms a circlet of glowing leaves, settles it upon Damien's curls, another miracle shared.

Secrets. Not in exchange, but-

Each whisper in their ears. Each little infinitude, which makes up the grandness of the whole.

Among the fragments of larger secrets he whispers droplets, too. Smaller secrets, which are no less important for their size.

He and his Keep know songs from before the first word was written down. Arum holds that knowledge with equal care to the particular way that his honeysuckle smiles when he finally stumbles upon the proper rhyme. He murmurs into Amaryllis' hair how the starlight caresses her skin, describes the light she cannot see until she kisses him with the glimmer still on her lips. He presents bright quills for Damien to write with, he produces colored inks, he gives them the rarest flowers from his greenhouse, the most beautifully aged mead from his hives. Secrets of his swamp, secrets of his home, secrets of himself.

Arum closes his eyes, leans just slightly down, and Amaryllis knows without being told that he wants her hands upon him but cannot bring himself to ask. Arum mutters a noncommittal answer and Damien smiles knowingly, and begins to recite as Arum listens.

They sit on a blanket beside him, quiet and warm, safe and _home_ , and they do not need to speak to say what they mean. They sit in gentle thrumming silence, the shafts of sunset pierce the canopy, and though he does not _need_ to, Arum murmurs another secret in their ears.

They smile, and squeeze his hands tighter, and whisper _I love you too_.

Arum's swamp is a thousand, thousand droplets of water, a thousand thousand specks of soil, a thousand thousand teeming tiny creatures, countless breaths of air and magic, stone and light.

Their love is built that way, too, on pebbles and droplets shared.

A grand infinitude that they create between them.


End file.
